Heading into Washington, the Ducks aimed to make a statement.
They accomplished that with a pair of wins on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, Oregon provided an exclamation point.
In the final game of a weekend series between two of the top five teams in the NCAA, No. 2 Oregon (41-7, 15-3 Pac-12) came away with a 5-3 win over No. 4 Washington to complete a sweep of the Huskies in Seattle.
Washington (41-8, 12-8 Pac-12) manufactured a run off of the Ducks’ Megan Kleist in the bottom of the second inning to jump out to the 1-0 lead.
For the third straight game, Washington held an early lead over Oregon. But just as they had done in the first two contests, the Ducks rallied from behind, and on Sunday, they didn’t wait long to do so.
In the top of third inning, the Ducks put a five-spot on the Huskies to jump out to a lead that they wouldn’t surrender the rest of the afternoon. A 2-RBI double from Jenna Lilley put the Ducks up 2-1. Two batters later, DJ Sanders drove in Lilley — and herself — with a two-run home run to left field to give Oregon a 4-1 lead. Sanders now has 13 home runs on the season, tying Gwen Svekis for the most on the team.
In Seattle, the long ball came at the right time for Sanders, whose grand slam in the top of the ninth inning on Friday lifted the Ducks to its series-opening win.
Kleist allowed three runs in 6-plus innings and earned the win to improve to 17-5 on the season. The Ducks welcome Utah to Eugene on Friday for their final regular season homestand.
Follow Cole Kundich on Twitter @ckundich